Crosswords
The summer after I graduated high school I started a new job. It wasn’t the most glamorous of occupations (I literally worked in a basement working with film developing chemicals in a small room without proper ventilation), but it was better than selling computers at Office Max. As we didn’t have too much work in the summer months, my coworker would steal the variety section from the newspaper upstairs and work on the cross word puzzles.
I had no interest in the puzzles at the time. They were difficult and confusing. Eventually I would peek in after he had a go and I could maybe fill in a square or two. Sometimes this would even allow him to solve the puzzle, but I certainly never started one on my own.
Jump forward a few months and I start finding myself in class, bored, and sometimes falling asleep. At this point, I started bringing the school newspaper to class with me in order to pass the time if the lecturer is covering something that I already know. On the last page of the newspaper I find a crossword puzzle and I start to fill in a clue or two. Jump forward three years and I’m able to complete a puzzle on my own.
Now I am obsessed. It’s been almost 10 years since I filled in a square or two on my coworker’s escape from work and I now attempt (and occasionally finish!) the daily New York Times crosswords. I’ve slowly learned “crossword-ese”, the language of crossword puzzles. A language that includes words like “alee” and far too many references to a certain architect by the name of Saarinen. I’ve collected quite a few books to take with me on trips and I can often be found working with my favorite iPhone app.
A decade has passed – which seems fairly long – and I can only consider myself moderately “good” at crosswords. Maybe in another 10 years I’ll be considered descent.
What I would really like to do now is construct a puzzle and see if it can get published. Then my name can appear next to those rows of tiny black and white squares; each with a couple clues and single answer.